How to remove imitsearch.net redirect from Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox? Why your browser is redirect to imitsearch.net randomly? Follow the guides below to find out an effective manual way, completely removing this nasty redirect virus.
imitsearch.net is a particular hacked website which pretends itself as a real search engine. However, it won’t provide you any trusty results. It is connected to browser hijackers and other malware infections such as ZeroAccess rootkit, Google Results Hijacker and Google Redirect Hijacker. This webpage does not show its evilness on its normal appearance. But you should be cautious when you find your browser keeps redirecting you to imitsearch.net, because that means a redirect virus is already installed on your computer without your permission.
Once it’s in your computer, the first thing it does is to change your browser default settings, homepage and registry entries. When it will keep redirecting you to various harmful websites against your will, especially to those websites full of ads and porno pop-up. When you open your browser and try to do some search, you will find this malicious webpage imitsearch.net has taken over your homepage. No matter what you do to change it back, the previous homepage is not going to show up. Besides, careful users can discover that unwanted toolbar is added to the compromised computer, completely slowing down your PC. imitsearch.net Redirect can affect any browser like IE, Mozilla FireFox and Google Chrome. Bear in mind that this website is with poor reputation and redirect virus is always designed to cheat victims and earn money. It further allows hackers to steal your personal and confidential data and use them for their own benefits. Once you detect your browser is redirecting to imitsearch.net, don’t hesitate to get rid of it as soon as possible.
It is said that you can easily get infected with this redirect virus when you visit illegal websites, download porno movies and other unidentified programs and open spam emails. You may still do these above activities even if you are aware of their dangers because you think your legitimate antivirus software can take care of the threats. But as a matter of fact, the creators of this browser redirect virus are so familiar with the functions of antivirus tools that they can make it escape from the detection and removal of any virus protectors. Thus, it is suggested users to follow the manual guide to delete imitsearch.net redirect.
Considering this malware can’t be fixed by any security tools, uses can use the manual guide below to fix this issue without any risk.
1. Clear all the cookies of your affected browsers.
Since tricky hijacker virus has the ability to use cookies for tracing and tracking the internet activity of users, it is suggested users to delete all the cookies before a complete removal.
Google Chrome:
Click on the “Tools” menu and select “Options”.
Click the “Under the Bonnet” tab, locate the “Privacy” section and click the “Clear browsing data” button.
Select “Delete cookies and other site data” to delete all cookies from the list.
Internet Explorer:
Open Internet explorer window
Click the “Tools” button
Point to “safety” and then click “delete browsing history”
Tick the “cookies” box, then click “delete”
Mozilla Firefox:
Click on Tools, then Options, select Privacy
Click “Remove individual cookies”
In the Cookies panel, click on “Show Cookies”
To remove a single cookie click on the entry in the list and click on the “Remove Cookie button”
To remove all cookies click on the “Remove All Cookies button”
2. End the malicious process from Task Manager.
Once imitsearch.net redirect is installed, computer user may notice that CPU usage randomly jumps to 100 percent, slowing down the computer. If your system’s CPU spike is constant, users should check from Task Manager and see if there is a suspicious process occupying the system resources and then end it immediately.
(The name of the virus process can be random.)
Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc at the same time and it will open up task manager directly. Then change to “Processes” tab.
3. Show hidden files and folders.
Open Folder Options by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking Appearance and Personalization, and then clicking Folder Options.
Click the View tab.
Under Advanced settings, click Show hidden files and folders, uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) and then click OK.
4. Remove all the malicious files manually.
%AppData%Local[random].exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current\Winlogon\”Shell” = “{random}.exe”
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\{random}
imitsearch.net redirect is prone to infect browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. It may install itself if a computer user has ever visited illegal or malicious websites or downloaded freeware or shareware from untrustworthy sources. After it is successfully downloaded, it can cause an immense problem to the functioning of a computer system by altering the browser settings and changing browser settings without any consent. Thus, once you use a search engine includes Google, Bing or other engines, you may still get the results but when you try to open the site you want, it will be always redirected to imitsearch.net or other random sites. This website may seem to be an alternative search option left for you but in reality it is a bogus program that brings spam content and paid advertisements relevant to the words you search for. This nasty redirect virus is designed so intelligently that you cannot stop it even by using normal anti-virus program, it is strongly recommended users to get rid of imitsearch.net manually and completely.
If you have no idea how to do about that, please contact experts from YooCare Online Tech Support for further help.
Published by & last updated on April 11, 2013 11:47 am
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